


waiting in unhope

by notthebees



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Suicidal Ideation, and i'm gonna fix it in the loosest possible sense of the word, listen i don't like what happens to collins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 21:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16627199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthebees/pseuds/notthebees
Summary: Goodsir was kind to Collins, and Collins finds a purpose in repaying that debt.It won't change where everyone ends up, but it might change how they get there—and surely that matters.





	waiting in unhope

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel (I guess) to [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15555894).

_It’s not so bad_ , he thinks. _Dying._ It’s not quite how he’d imagined it, but it’s not bad either.

Of course, it had hurt terribly at first, when the rampaging beast had caught him in the belly with an upward swipe, lifted him clean off his feet and tossed him aside like he was nothing, clothing and skin and muscle all parting cleanly beneath its great claws; but when he had hit the ground, bright blooms bursting against the black mist that filled his vision and a deafening roaring in his ears and the _pain_ —it had hurt, yes, but it had almost felt as though it were happening to someone else. As if Collins had ceded the helm and been relegated to passenger in his own body—which was not in fact really his—and it was _that_ body whose torn flesh and spilled guts shrieked in pain while Collins merely listened in at the keyhole, so to speak.

Anyway, that had been earlier—though whether it had been hours or minutes he couldn’t say—and it isn’t as bad anymore. He can’t be sure, but things seem quiet, calmer, around him; though still, in the periphery of his vision, dark figures move. _They’re not all dead, then. I wonder where_ it _went._

A shadow of worry, unfixed to anything or anyone in particular, drifts over him, and he must do his best to focus through the fog, remember where the worry belongs, what it’s for, and when it does come to him the guilt follows on its tail, and fear too, for the first time since that thing had sunk its claws in and laid him out. _He—did it get him? Did_ they _get him?_

As if in answer, a voice reaches him, shouting. It sounds close. “DOCTOR GOODSIR! DOCTOR GOODSIR, COME QUICKLY!”

 _Ah_ , thinks Collins, closing his eyes and settling back down into the dreamy, heavy haze. _He’s all right then. Good._

* * *

For most of the winter and the summer before that, nothing had happened at all, and time had stretched out slack and elastic, marked only by the steady loss of things both material and not. It was funny ( _Was it funny?_ He wasn’t sure) how he could see in his mind’s eye Billy Orren screaming down out of the sky like a wounded hawk, when he could barely remember where he was or what he was doing when Sir John had been taken by the beast. Billy wasn’t even his friend, not really, not in the proper sense of the word, though Collins had _liked_ him, and so it made the way he’d crumpled in on himself in the weeks following Billy’s death all the more pathetic. 

_This isn’t how I used to be_ , he would think. But maybe that was wrong. He didn’t know what he was like now—although when he tried to picture himself as others must see him, he pictured a dark gelatinous monster, dumb and repulsive, a giant slug leaving a trail of slime and soot everywhere he crept—so how could he be sure what he was like _then_ either? He _felt_ like he’d been different, though, at some point in his life. Louder, maybe. More solid. Realer. 

There was a time, he was sure of it, when he’d stridden across the deck with his head raised and his shoulders thrown back, taking a small bit of pleasure in the decisive stomp of his sea boots on the wooden planks, because that sound, to him, had meant, _I’m Henry Collins and I’m here, and you can look to me to see how things ought to be done._ He’d felt a bit grand, truth be told, in his hat and his woolen coat, proud of his position with the expedition, and it made him feel important when men had asked him for instruction or advice. Of course, maybe that had all been in his head, all part of the fantasy of being Henry Collins, Second Master. It didn’t matter, though, because no one asked him anything now. Henry Collins, Second Master, if he had ever existed at all, was no longer.

He hadn’t wanted the others to look at him after Billy Orren died, but that was for his own sake—the fear that he’d crack in front of them and they wouldn’t think the same of him again. Somewhere along the line, though, it had changed: he no longer cared what they thought of him; he just wanted to stay out of their way to keep whatever _it_ was from rubbing off on them too. He’d begun to feel slightly abashed by, and then ashamed of, the space he occupied—as if he had any _right_ to it, he, a useless sponge of the ship’s precious resources—he’d begun to cringe at the sound of his own footsteps—graceless, lumbering idiot, why couldn’t he just blend in?—he’d begun to make mistakes, and curse himself bitterly for them, continued to climb into the diving suit as he was bid, but not bid others any longer. It was pathetic, and all the more contemptible on a large loud man like him, and the shame fed on itself and grew until it engulfed him entire, until it wore him like a coat.

Only Goodsir had coaxed him out of that hellish mire, even just briefly—had spoken his name and let him _be_ for a moment. And all at once, Collins had felt a lurch and then a settling feeling, as the trajectory of his endless miserable existence had, quietly but noticeably, shifted. No longer floating aimlessly, sluggishly, it was as though he had been drawn into the orbit of some bright star, and although everything was just as dismal as it had been, he moved through time now with a purpose. It didn’t matter whether the star registered his existence or not, and it didn’t matter that whatever doubtlessly unpleasant end awaiting him out on the ice was still there. What mattered was that there was now a chance that when the end came it could fit into some sort of narrative, the story of Collins’s own life that he could tell himself, and which now could come to a close rather than simply run out of steam and stop. At least, that was what Collins told himself, and, true or not, it provided him a small measure of hope—not that he would live, but that he might find it possible to die usefully. And from that night he had swung in a hungry, bleeding, desperate orbit, at the center of which was Goodsir.

And then had come Carnivale. Of all the myriad and terrible things Collins had seen during this nightmare of a journey, the men burning alive in that tent had been the worst. (Or maybe that seemed the worst now only because it was merely the most recent in a sequence of waking nightmares, and that in a few months, provided Collins had the misfortune to still be alive then, he’d think of something more gruesome and awful as the worst, and Carnivale would be a muddy memory that only his nostrils could recall.) The screams, the scorching and melting of flesh, the charred bodies, and worst of all the charred men who had not yet become corpses when they were hauled from the smoldering ruins. Collins had looked back as he fled to see a man disappear, engulfed by black smoke, reaching out, up, for him, for help, just like Billy Orren had before slipping under for good, and Collins, attempting to return for him but caught in the sweep of the crowd, had been unable to grasp that hand too, and the man—God help him, he didn’t know who it had been, not with the costume—was gone, just like that. Collins didn’t remember running, but the human tide must have flushed him out through the hole in the canvas and deposited him on the ice. 

Afterwards, unable to escape the smell which drifted the half mile back to Erebus (and which filled every nose there anyway), he’d helped sift through the burnt-out wreckage to see whether anything might be salvaged, and then, stomach roiling with nausea, had helped lay the bodies—or what remained of them—out to be tallied and identified. Some of the dead men—his dead friends with whom he’d lived and worked and bunked for two years—had no faces. Goodsir hurried about with no other doctors left to aid him, and he and Collins—whether too busy or too weary or too sad or too embarrassed by the night they’d spent huddled together on the floor, spilling terrible, raw secrets—did not speak or exchange glances.

 _It wasn’t right_ , Collins had thought as he’d laid out his fellows’ bodies and dug graves and laid awake through the night with the smell of seared flesh still sticking to him. _They’d wanted to go home. It shouldn’t have happened like that, not with screaming and agony and panic. And if it must have, why did I escape when I won’t be going back anyway?_ What an enormous waste: not just the death itself, but that it had been these men, who, presumably, and unlike Collins, had dreams and ambitions and futures and hopes—however slim—of living to see them realized.

Collins had shut his eyes and tried to imagine he was wherever their lost souls had gone.

* * *

The convulsion of activity following Carnivale was a perverse relief in its own way, as it kept Collins too busy to spend any time thinking about anything whatsoever beyond the task directly before him. He still had not spoken to Goodsir about their talk only a few nights before—of course, that had been before all _this_ —but when Morfin had dropped a heavy crate of Goodsir’s fragile instruments onto the ice with a crash and Collins had stepped in to help him heave it up again, Goodsir had materialized, and he’d lightly touched Collins’s elbow. It was barely enough for Collins to feel it through his coat, but there had been an unspoken question in it. _All right, Henry?_ And Collins had known that if he but raised his eyes to meet Goodsir’s and read anything there resembling soft concern that he’d break, just like he’d done the other night—and he couldn’t do that here, now, and so he’d given only a perfunctory downward nod and stumbled away.

He’d known Goodsir was close behind him that whole first day they’d spent hauling, but he’d kept his head down and not looked back once. Collins could hardly stand to look at anyone anymore, because if he looked at someone they might look at him too, and something black and vile would seep out of his mouth and eyes and would stain and sully them, and if someone reached out and touched him it would bleed through his skin to blacken their fingertips too, and things were bad enough without him dirtying anyone else with whatever it was that was wrong and bad about him.

And yet, Goodsir had looked at him that night weeks before, and touched him too, and hadn’t recoiled in disgust, and still Collins could not look back, for fear that it had been a mistake which Goodsir regretted, and if he were so indecorous as to remind the man, Goodsir would simply ignore him, turn away.

But then Goodsir had come to him that very night where they camped on the ice, and inquired after him (well, he had been looking for Morfin, not Collins, but it was kindly meant anyway), and squeezed his shoulder (Collins should have drawn away, it would have been the right thing to do, but he couldn’t—), and embraced him (not that he’d had much of a choice, seeing as Collins had lost his self-control again and the desperation had overcome him and he’d slumped against Goodsir first, but still—), and had not remonstrated him for babbling (again) or for weeping (again). 

They hadn’t spoken about the business in the sick bay before Carnivale, which was both fresh and an eternity ago. But Goodsir had spoken to him, laid a gentle hand on him, despite another humiliating lapse in decorum from Collins. If Goodsir _had_ taken issue with him—if Collins had told him too many things and overstepped his bounds—then at least Goodsir had forgiven him, so far as he could tell. It didn’t feel good, exactly, but at least Goodsir didn’t hate him, wasn’t too mortified to look him in the eye or touch him. 

In fact, before they had parted—for Goodsir was making his rounds, had places to be, and it was selfish of Collins to monopolize his attention in the first place, though Goodsir was too kind to say so—he had stooped to catch Collins’s downcast eyes, and when he had them, had said earnestly, “Try to get a night’s sleep, then. It will be better once we’re on solid ground again and moving, you’ll see. You can come find me once we’ve made camp on land, if you like. That is, if you’re not busy.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Collins had choked out. “I—I will.”

* * *

But he hadn’t. He’d been preoccupied unloading the sled, and Goodsir had been busy tending to others, as he always seemed to be nowadays, and then it had been dark and Collins had not wanted to disturb him. Left in the warm, fading glow of Goodsir’s wake, Collins had looked at himself through the doctor’s eyes, and what he had seen disgusted him: a grown man, unhinged, talking nonsense and crying like a baby. How could he show his face to Goodsir, who, even now, was probably trying to forget, to spare both Collins and himself the embarrassment? How could Collins stand to burden him so? And so Collins had avoided him.

And then Morfin—

He’d not left his tent when, a few nights later, Morfin had had his head blown half off, not that it had been much better than witnessing it himself. He’d been lying on his pallet, gazing up into that blank darkness, imagining he was sinking through the depthless waves—was this the last thing Billy saw? Had Billy reached upward as the light from the surface dimmed until it disappeared altogether and the blackness swallowed him? Collins had dreamt more than once of drowning, and despite reports that it was quite painful, in his dreams it was always peaceful, albeit dark, and he’d never fought it.

King William Land was cold and hostile and empty as the sea, but no one would be drowning here. In a way, that was a small relief. 

Billy had fallen so long ago, and so much had happened since, but time had become slippery, and the clarity of this particular memory was the reason he kept coming back to it (or was it the other way around?). He’d last seen Billy a year and a half ago. No, he’d last seen Billy yesterday. He’d been on this endless rocky waste since he was born. It was all the same; nothing here existed by which to mark the passage of time but the growing rolls of the dead. And still Collins—hapless, useless, cracked—remained. He’d closed his eyes, opened them, closed them again. No difference inside the tent, just the featureless, pitiless dark.

_Why am I here? Why have I been brought this far? When can I stop?_

The shouting had startled him, but he hadn’t risen to investigate as his tentmates had, only listened with growing dread and the intimate agony of recognition.

_“I need you to shoot me. Will you do it? Will you please put me down.”_

Collins had curled in on himself, wishing suddenly not that he’d gone outside with the others—for he didn’t need to see Morfin in order to _know_ , to understand—but that one of them had stayed here with him. He didn’t want to hear it alone. 

“Mr. Morfin is in great pain. He’d like us to end it for him.” 

_Yes_ , thought Collins. _Please. Please._ Could Morfin do it? Make good on his threat? Could Collins, if he were desperate enough? _No._ He knew that much. He’d never do that—too guilty about the trouble it would case. But if he _threatened_ it, would _they_ do it? Or would they call his bluff? And then what? A shameful spectacle it would be, and for nothing.

In spite of everything, and no matter what he might have craved for himself in Morfin’s place, Collins had hoped dearly that Morfin would lay down arms. 

Two shots had rung out. Collins had sobbed aloud without meaning to.

_It’s not right. It’s not fair._

But as he had lain there alone in his tent, trembling slightly, torn between pity and a rueful envy that at least for Morfin it was _over_ , an idea was beginning to take shape in the back of his mind. An idea that at first crystallized slowly, half consciously, and then coalesced into a single mad conviction: _It’s him, _he thought. _The good doctor. He’s the reason I can’t do like that. If I can help him, I will. Until he makes it home, or one of us is dead.___

It _was_ mad. Collins knew that. Knew it was utterly absurd, knew it was just his broken brain grasping feverishly for anything promising, even if all that was promised was an ugly and premature death, and he didn’t care. The despair had set in some time ago—too long for Collins to remember when, exactly—but now occasionally there were moments when he would break through to the other side of it, where lay not despair but anticipation. (Or maybe it was not breaking through to the other side so much as excavating a hidden and deeper chamber contained within despair, but either way it didn’t matter anymore.) What he felt from time to time—aside from the constant gnawing hunger and the fiery pain in his hands and the cramping of his muscles as soon as he lay down to sleep at night and the soul-weariness and crushing sadness—was morbid anticipation. Of what, he couldn’t say. An ending. But the sort of ending that might matter somewhere, to someone. Whether or not it was true, whether or not he was insane—and he was sure he was—those moments imbued him with a sense of terminal purpose. Or at least, a hope for purpose. And that, as far as Collins was concerned, was better.

But the next morning Lieutenant Irving was killed, and then there were whispers of some gory business with the Netsilik, and then Goodsir had left the camp with the Captain and when he’d come back he had not been the same. Tired, and muted somehow. Then gallows were being built and there were whispers of attempted mutiny and Collins was too afraid to ask what was going on. So, in search of something to do that might distract him from himself, and in spite of his fear of being overbearing or burdensome, he found himself standing outside the flap of Goodsir’s tent, shuffling from one foot to the other with nerves and cold.

“Dr. Goodsir?”

The doctor answered, voice muffled, “Come in.”

Goodsir was leaned over a shrouded form on the table that must have been Irving, head propped up on his elbows, face in his hands. He looked up when Collins entered, and all Collins was able to think was, _He looks shattered._

“Apologies if I’m bothering you, I just thought...maybe you could use some help. I can go if you’d rather work alone.”

“No,” Goodsir stood up with a grimace. “No, no you can help me, if you’d like. I suppose you’ve heard the news?”

Collins hummed noncommittally. He didn’t want to talk or think about _that_ , but Goodsir looked as though he didn’t want to talk or think about anything, so maybe it was best to change the subject. “How can I help?”

“Could you take a count of the wraps of clean bandages we still have?” Goodsir rubbed his forehead. He looked ill. Collins had a feeling that Goodsir was just humoring him, and would in all honesty rather he weren’t there. It was too late to retreat, though, so Collins just nodded and got to work unspooling and spooling bandages in the corner of the tent, trying to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible.

“How are your hands, Henry?” Goodsir had asked, as though he’d just remembered.

“My...oh. They’re...erm...they’re fine,” Collins lied. It hadn’t been Goodsir’s fault they were peeling and bleeding inside his gloves, and the man looked half dead inside anyway. No point in disheartening him further or wasting more precious supplies, anyway.

Goodsir hadn’t answered. He hadn’t done anything. He’d just stared blearily at Collins.

Collins was struck with the sudden fear that Goodsir might begin to shed tears, and the thought of it rather made his chest hurt, and so he quickly said, “It’s not your fault.”

Goodsir gestured around futilely. “What’s not?”

“Any of—of this.”

There was a pause. “Did you know they sent her away? Lady Silence. Right out there, into...whatever’s out there. After killing her friends, of course.”

Collins didn’t know what to say to that. He looked away. “Oh.”

“I couldn’t do anything about it. And here’s Lieutenant Irving.” Collins didn’t look at the lump under the sheet. “And there are your hands—don’t shake your head, Henry, I know they’re bad. It's all bad. Everything out there. And what am I going to do about it? What use could I possibly be? I’m not even a doctor.”

Collins shook his head. “It’s not like that.”

“Oh?”

“It’s not—you can’t put it like that.” Collins was stupid, he was so stupid, he didn’t know what he meant to get at but it was important to him that Goodsir heard it. “You might not have a proper hospital, and—and the tools for a doctor. But the Captain doesn’t have his ships now either, and he’s still….” This wasn’t what what he was trying to say. “You remembered my name.”

Goodsir looked at him bleakly. “I expect there are few enough of us left that we all know everyone’s name.”

“That’s not what I—” This wasn’t going right. “You talked to me, and you—you said my name. You looked at me. No one looks at me. No one t—it mattered. To me it mattered. You can’t stop what’s not your fault, but you’ve got to...to see it like the rest of us do.” Collins stammered at last to a halt. Looked up. Goodsir had a curious look on his face, part guilt and part grief.

“That’s just what I think,” Collins clarified hastily. “But it’s others who think it too, doctor.”

Goodsir shook his head. “I’m afraid you have me wrong, Henry. I’m not—”

“I don’t. Not about this one thing. I know I’m mad and stupid, but I know I’m right about you. You have to believe me. You have to make it back.”

“You’re not—” 

Goodsir was interrupted by the yell that cut through the fog: “ALL MEN ASSEMBLE AT THE SOUTH GUARD POST. ALL MEN.” He sighed heavily.

“I pray that this is over quickly. Are you coming, Collins?” He paused, then, gently: “You don’t have to.”

Collins didn’t want to stay in here with Lieutenant Irving, but the thought of watching men turn purple and piss themselves and struggle at the end of a rope was more than he thought he could bear. “Won’t I be missed?”

Goodsir gave what was likely his best attempt at an encouraging smile, though it did more to remind Collins of the bodies he’d handled after Carnivale whose faces were burnt with their lips pulled back, exposing their teeth. “You’re occupied with an important task for me,” he said. “I daresay no one will notice.”

“Oh,” said Collins. “Oh. Thank you. I—I’ll do it. Thank you, doctor.”

* * *

When the roaring and screaming had begun, Collins had initially frozen. He’d stumbled to the opening of the tent, and then just stood there looking into the fog that hemmed him in on all sides. It was hard to know where any of the sounds were coming from: as best as he could tell it was somewhere behind him, but aside from that he was blind, unarmed, and terrified. Then the men had come streaming back into camp, flashes of them darting between tents, and there were orders being shouted and frightened men dashing in all directions.

Collins had started this way and that, unsure of where to go or what to do. And then Goodsir had materialized from the fog, seized Collins by the shoulder and shoved him back into the medical tent ahead of him.

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?”

“IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE, INTERRUPTED THE HANGING, TOOK US BY SURPRISE,” Goodsir half shouted to be heard above the din. “GET DOWN AND BE QUIET.”

Collins shook his head and moved toward the exit. “I’LL BE NEEDED SOMEWHERE,” he shouted back, though he couldn’t imagine where he ought to be running, or whether it was wise to leave Goodsir here alone. Where did his duty lie? Where could he be of any help whatsoever? “JUST LET ME TAKE A LOOK.”

He had barely taken a single running stride through the tent flap when he collided head-on with Magnus Manson, who stumbled back, nearly dropping the rifle he was carrying. 

“MANSON,” Collins pulled Manson towards him and yelled into his ear. “WHERE IS EVERYONE GOING? WHERE DID YOU GET THAT GUN?”

“Get OFF me,” Manson mumbled. “Go somewhere else.”

“WHAT? LOUDER! MANSON, WHERE ARE THEY ASSEMBLING?”

Manson moved so quickly—shoving Collins away and leveling his rifle—that Collins, too stunned to resist, almost lost his footing completely.

“MANSON YOU FOOL, WHAT IN GOD’S—”

“IT’S NOT YOU I’M HERE FOR.” Manson’s voice was loud enough to rise above the surrounding sounds of chaos, but steady. “COLLINS, GET BACK. I’M NOT HERE FOR YOU, I’M HERE FOR GOODSIR, AND I DON’T WANT TO SHOOT EITHER OF YOU BUT I SWEAR I WI—”

Collins barrelled into him, shoulder knocking him hard in the lower abdomen, and Manson managed a shocked heaving noise before hitting the ground, the rifle discharging uselessly over Collins’s head and clattering to the rocks. 

Collins was big, but Manson was bigger, and there was no possible way he could overpower the giant, but he didn’t have to, he just had to buy time for—

“GOODSIR!” howled Collins, striking desperately at Manson’s face as the latter rolled him onto his back and began to pummel him. “GOODSIR GET OUT OF HERE! GO SOMEWHERE ELSE AND HI—” Manson’s fist knocked all the air from his lungs, and as he gasped and sputtered, his vision blackening and stars dancing before his eyes, he swore he saw Goodsir emerge from the tent, making to flee this way and then that. “Ge—get—” Collins wheezed, doing his best to shoo Goodsir with his left hand, before Magnus’s fist found his stomach once again. 

He was kicking Manson and holding fast to the man’s coat at the same time, and Manson was punching him and trying to get away, trying to retrieve his rifle, trying to go after Goodsir, and Collins wasn’t going to let that happen—he wasn’t fighting Manson off so much as hauling him down like an anchor, keeping him from getting to his feet, stubbornly absorbing Manson’s punishing blows. _He’s going to have to kill me_ , he thought. And then, as Manson clapped a hand over his throat to crush his windpipe, _he’s going to kill me._

He was thrashing and kicking up such a storm, blood thundering in his ears, that he hadn't immediately registered what had occurred when Manson was torn upwards and he, grasping Manson’s coat with all his might, was thrown up onto his feet as well. It happened very quickly: one moment Manson was scrambling on all fours toward the discarded rifle, and the next his entire head was simply gone. The great beast had turned toward Collins, roaring, with Manson’s hot blood staining its white muzzle, and Collins, still gasping to refill his lungs, had not even thought to run.

It had lifted one enormous paw, buried its claws deep into his belly while in the same fluid motion hurling him a dozen feet farther from the entrance of the tent. And then it was gone, as if neither Manson nor Collins himself had particularly interested it, and Collins lay there panting, his entire body alight with pain, as the roars and crashes became more distant and the grey fog rolled down until it was all he saw.

* * *

And now it must be over, he thinks. He can hear anguished groans, and men’s voices calling to one another through the haze, but no more screaming. He tries to raise his head, but the effort makes him dizzy, so he shuts his eyes and thinks about breathing instead, and about the doctor, and whether he still lives.

“DOCTOR GOODSIR! DOCTOR GOODSIR, COME QUICKLY!” Whoever is yelling sounds nearby, and Collins’s muddled mind is only just able to connect the cry to the implication that Goodsir must be alive. _Good._

There’s the crunch of boots on loose stone, and then a hand on his, and then a soft, urgent voice: _“Henry.”_

Collins opens his eyes; Goodsir kneels beside him, craning over him, looking tired and frightened but uninjured. He tries to speak, to tell Goodsir what a relief it is to see him, but all that comes out of his mouth is an awful whistling rattle, and Goodsir hushes him.

“It’s alright, Henry—no, it’s alright. Here, let’s take a look at how bad it is, then.” Goodsir moves Collins’s arm from where it lies across his own body, and carefully peels back one side of Collins’s unbuttoned coat. A quiet inhale. “Oh dear.”

It must be bad, but Collins must have known that already, because the soft proclamation doesn’t rouse any fear on his part. He feels curiously unbothered. Were it not for the fact that he can’t move and can barely speak and is evidently dying, he’d almost describe the feeling as serene. His hand finds Goodsir’s sleeve, gives it a weak, insistent tug. Goodsir bows his head so that Collins can whisper without having to exert himself too greatly.

“The others—are they—? How many?” 

Goodsir replaces Collins’s coat over the yawning gashes made by the bear—from which, Collins dimly supposes, his guts must be trying to escape—and sighs. “It was...there are many hurt. And some have taken a boat and...and struck out on their own.” He swallows thickly. “Henry, I do believe you saved my life, earlier. I think Mr. Manson was going to take me with Mr. Hickey and Sergeant Tozier and the others, and I...well, I think he would have if you hadn’t stopped him. That was—” his voice wavers “—very brave of you. And...and noble. I think I owe you a great debt, Henry. My life, even.” He bows his head, stricken, but Collins sees his face twist.

“No—” Collins gurgles. “Right thing. You are...best of us….” He summons his strength and places his other hand atop Goodsir’s. “I’m...happy.”

And he _is_ happy. He hadn’t known he would ever feel this happy again, and under such circumstances. But he feels happy. Goodsir is here, alive, uninjured. He has the inarticulable sense of having finished a wearisome task, but having done it well. It’s not pride, but it is...warm. The moment stretches on and on, and Collins lets it, content to lie here like this forever so long as this feeling lasts, so long as Goodsir is there to smile gently at him and hold his hand.

“It’s not bad,” he whispers.

“What’s not?”

Collins nods almost imperceptibly toward his own mangled torso. “This.”

“Ah,” whispers Goodsir tightly. “No? No. Good. Are you comfortable?”

Collins makes a small sound, neither a yes nor a no, but neither does he try to move, and so Goodsir leaves him be, only squeezes his hand. “You’re a brave man and a good one, Henry. I hope...I hope you feel at peace. God knows you’ve earned it.”

“H-Harry,” Collins breathes raggedly. “Thank you.”

A flash of confusion crosses Goodsir’s face, but he doesn’t ask Collins to explain, which is just as well, since Collins doesn’t think he could. Instead he just says, “You’ve done so well, Henry. I’m so very…. Just breathe. That’s it. That's alright.”

Collins does as he’s bid. _In. Out. In. Out._

It’s not bad. In fact it’s better than he’d ever imagined—it’s nice, even. With his other hand, Goodsir smooths a lock of hair away from Collins’s brow. It’s not bad. 

Collins smiles.

It’s not bad.


End file.
